


the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses

by mygalfriday (BrinneyFriday)



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Praise Kink, character study disguised as smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-11
Updated: 2016-12-11
Packaged: 2018-09-07 23:12:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8820073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrinneyFriday/pseuds/mygalfriday
Summary: After a lifetime of being told she’s nothing but an insignificant and easily replaceable tool required to finish a job, there is nothing she desires more than having the best man she knows in her arms, cooing praise against her ear. And he’s so very, very good at it.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to Bree for discussing River's psychology with me over text and for convincing me this isn't too weird to post. 
> 
> Story title from e.e. cummings ‘somewhere I have never travelled, gladly beyond’

 

 

She blames it on her childhood – both of them. Trained to kill from the age of two, there was little tenderness in River’s life. Lives. Of course, she’d had Amy and Rory in her second childhood but it wasn’t as if they’d known. And it isn’t as if her brutal training had stopped just because she’d escaped to Leadworth.

 

There were still bruises and darkness, cruel words and blanks in her memory. A knife under her pillow. Punishment waiting around every corner if she didn’t do exactly as she was told. Kindness was always a deficient in her life – until the Doctor. The man who seems to know more about her than she knows about herself. It prickles at her sometimes, makes her snap at him and run away and rebel in all the ways she knows how. Until one day it isn’t so terrifying anymore to have someone who knows all the parts of her she wished no one could see. It’s a comfort.

 

The minute she stops running, she falls.

 

He catches her. Scoops her right up into those gangly, deceptively strong arms of his and shows her everything that she has been missing. Kindness. Love. Affection. How to hold hands. How to kiss like she has all the time in the universe instead of like she’s running out of it. How to have sex without drawing blood and leaving bruises.

 

She’d thought she would hate it, thought she would bristle against it like a child in the uncomfortable frills of her Sunday best. In some ways that’s exactly how she feels – it’s slower and far less exciting and she likens it to an adrenaline junkie being forced into a protective bubble. But she can’t deny it is rather nice.

 

The Doctor – all bright-eyed and flushed, gorgeous youthful skin on display and his hair flopping into his eyes – spreads her out beneath him and lavishes every inch of her with the kind of attention that makes her squirm. He maps freckles with his tongue, counts her ribs with his fingertips, nudges her bellybutton with his chin and uses his mouth to trace over her breasts and over her cunt until she thinks he could recreate her from sense memory alone.

 

For a while, it’s enjoyable. More than enjoyable. She’s so wet they’ll have to change the sheets she has gripped in her fists, thighs splayed as she watches the Doctor suck on her clit like he has cleared his schedule for the next century and he has nothing to do but her.

 

There’s no sight she loves better than her naked Time Lord between her legs and part of her wishes she could just lie back and enjoy the view but there’s an itch under her skin. A restlessness that drives her to want it faster and harder and _gods yes there_. She wants to leave marks on his skin that he’ll never be rid of. She wants whoever finds themselves in the Doctor’s bed long after she’s gone to know that she was here first.

 

Fingers so tight in the sheets she knows she’s going to leave tears in the shape of her fingernails, River drops her chin to her chest and draws up her legs. She feels the Doctor’s lazy tongue lap at her entrance with obstinate leisure and growls through her teeth. He looks up, his eyes dark and hooded, and their gazes meet.

 

River stares at him helplessly and he smiles like he knows she’s finally reached her breaking point. With a sigh, he sucks one last open-mouthed kiss into her sex and then he’s lifting himself up and draping his body over her. He takes himself in hand and when River scoots back into the pillows and reaches for him greedily, she snaps, “Finally.”

 

The Doctor laughs, clearly enjoying her agony, but River takes her revenge by lifting her hips and guiding him impatiently, mercilessly into her. His laughter turns to a shocked groan and she bites her lip against a smirk. He sinks into the lush heat of her with a strangled whimper that turns her insides to mush. “River.”

 

She sighs softly, gripping him to her. This, she decides, will always be her favorite part. Making the Oncoming Storm quiver in her arms, their sweat-slicked skin sliding together as the Doctor buries himself deep inside her. His hitching cries lost in the wildness of her hair.

 

She wants to flip them over, wants to straddle his narrow hips and look down into that boyish face as she finally takes control. And she knows that some nights, she will do just that. Some nights will be for handcuffs and toys, for quick fucks on the console because they’d nearly died. But for some reason, the Doctor seems intent on being the one in control right now. As if he has something to prove. It isn’t exactly torture, so River lets him.

 

His body trembles over hers, his arms straining with the effort to hold himself up and stare down at her. River cards her fingers through his hair, taking care to be gentle since that seems to be what he wants, and urges him toward her. He presses his skin against hers again and kisses her briefly, his tongue twining tantalizing with hers before he pulls away and ducks his head.

 

River presses her lips against his temple and wraps her leg tight around his waist, keening softly when the movement allows him to stroke far deeper than before. She digs her fingers into his shoulders, encouraging the steady rocking of his hips by meeting him halfway. “Doctor,” she pants, squirming beneath him. She needs release and it’s _so_ close. Just out of reach. If he would just fuck her a little harder – River groans in protest at his unhurried pace, digging her heel into his thigh. “Honey, please -”

 

“Shh,” he whispers, and presses that pouting mouth against her ear.

 

River settles instantly, too curious to protest. In a million years, she wouldn’t have thought the Doctor would be the type to talk during sex. He’s such a shy thing, bless. But he wets his lips, his tongue hot against her ear, and what he says isn’t dirty. Quite the opposite. He’s sweet-talking her.

 

_That’s it, my River. I’ve got you, sweetheart. My gorgeous wife, you’re perfect._

 

Her eyes go wide. Her hips jerk helplessly against his. Her breath leaves her in a rush. Warmth spreads all through her, tingling in her fingers and toes. A knot of white-hot desire blooms in her belly, the intensity of which entirely belies the slow tenderness of their lovemaking thus far. River digs her fingernails into his arms and throws back her head, gasping out needfully, “Again.”

 

The Doctor smirks against the shell of her ear, like he’d known. He probably had. He knows everything about her, apparently. Even this. Long, clever fingers slipping between their bodies, the Doctor finds her clit and teases his fingertips against it. “Good girl, River.”

 

She comes so hard she sees stars and galaxies behind her eyes for days.

 

-

 

After that, it becomes a shameful kink River likes to indulge in whenever they’re together. It’s just too delicious – her sweet-faced young Doctor with his voice all deep and rumbling in his chest as he murmurs _mine_. If only the universe knew that the mad, bad, dangerous River Song likes to be told what a very good girl she is.

 

But no. That isn’t right, is it? She doesn’t like it. She needs it. She craves it like an addict hunting down a fix. In some ways, it's her little rebellion – allowing this man she was supposed to destroy touch her with such tenderness and deem her worthy – but it's more than even that. It's salvation.

 

The Doctor loving her is the only thing that has ever been stronger than the sense of failure burning in her bones. After a lifetime of being told she’s nothing but an insignificant and easily replaceable tool required to finish a job, there is nothing she desires more than having the best man she knows in her arms, cooing praise against her ear.

 

And he’s so very, very good at it.

 

She never tells anyone else – not even the Doctor when the tables turn and he’s the younger one in their relationship. He just always seems to know what she needs and River is grateful she never has to explain it. He’s always right there, his eyes twinkling and his hand up her skirt as he calls her _perfect_ in her office after a long day of ordering students about; _my darling girl_ for special occasions like her birthday and their anniversary. After she takes down an entire army with a blaster and a knuckle-duster, there’s still blood under her nails but the Doctor takes her to bed and calls her _beautiful_.

 

It becomes her own version of absolution. Only someone with his darkness could look upon hers and still see traces of light. Only someone who has reached so long for his own redemption could call her good as if it's as true as scripture and make her believe it. Only a Doctor could heal the scars she bears. Sweet words spoken in a soft voice when for so long she didn’t feel like she deserved either of those things. She didn’t deserve goodness or gentleness, the words he wielded like caresses. It’s the Doctor who is always there to remind her that yes, yes she does.

 

Which is why, when he disappears after Manhattan, she forgets.

 

There is no one else she trusts with that part of her, not even Ramone. It would feel wrong from someone else. As untrue as words from a false prophet. Those words belong to River and the Doctor, an intimacy shared between husband and wife. Without him, she learns to live in the darkness again.

 

The need is still there, an itch under her skin that she tells herself will never be soothed. There is no forgiveness for her, no more love or affection. For the first time in years, she uses sex like a weapon and calls herself victor when she draws blood. She goes to bed with the ashes of her enemies still in her hair and there is no one to offer _good girl_ like a benediction. She closes her eyes, closes her finger around the trigger, closes her hearts to kindness, and tells herself it’s what she deserved all along.

 

When they find each other again, the Doctor has a new face but he still looks at her with all the old tenderness. Like she’s good. Worthy. And it’s been so long since anyone looked at her like that she finds herself free-falling back into addiction despite the long years she’d spent getting clean without him.

 

The Doctor doesn’t miss a beat, catching her just like always. He guides her to bed after dinner on the balcony, stripping her out of her dress with older but more confident hands. He says nothing as he kisses her neck and cups her breast and strokes her knee. For a moment, she worries that he doesn’t remember. Or maybe this body doesn’t do that sort of talk. Or maybe, she thinks, remembering all the callous things he'd seen her do today, he simply no longer believes it.

 

“Stop thinking,” the Doctor rumbles, his teeth sinking into her hip. His eyes drift lazily up to hers, his new mouth curling into a smirk. “Lie back and behave for me, darling.”

 

She trembles in relief and drops her head back to her pillow, gasping up at the ceiling as the first hit in far too long rushes through her bloodstream like a drug. The Doctor doesn’t let her come down from the high, offering up sweet nothings with every new patch of skin he kisses. _Beautiful_. His mouth traces a wet line down her stomach and he compares a pattern of freckles to his favorite constellation. He presses hot kisses against her inner thigh. _Perfect_.

 

His mouth descends on her sex, hot and eager to taste her again, and River curls her hands into the sheets. Once upon a time, there was nothing she loved more than hearing his younger self whisper sweet words in her ear but now that he’s older and Scottish, it’s even better. There’s something about that gruff accent – such a lovely contrast to the sweet words dripping from his sharp tongue – that makes her shudder and quake.

 

Gods but she’s missed this. He’s the only one who could ever call her a good girl and not make her laugh out loud with the absurdity of it, the only one who can call her beautiful and not make it sound like a come-on. He makes her feel holy. He makes her feel loved and cherished and worthy and no one else will ever get this. This is theirs.

 

She wishes she had the words to tell him but all she can do is thread her fingers through his hair and gasp, rocking her hips against his honeyed mouth. “Doctor – _oh_. Gods, darling -” She tugs gently on his hair and orders, “Up here.”

 

He moves instantly, surging up to kiss her thoroughly. She tastes herself on him and curls a hand around the back of his neck, keeping him close. Using her free hand, she slithers between their bodies and feels the vibration of his groan against her mouth when she takes him in hand. She smiles wickedly, nipping at his lip.

 

The Doctor growls, letting her guide him inside, and _oh_ no one fits her like this. No matter his body there is something about the Doctor that is bespoke – tailored in every way to fit just right with hers. Everyone else is but a poor substitute. Her sex wrapped tight and grasping around him, the Doctor sets his jaw and pins her hands above her head.

 

River lets him, happy to be dominated by the one man in the universe who could actually manage it if he wanted. He moves in her just right – slow and deep, stealing her breath with every thrust until her lungs burn and all she can do is roll her hips to take him in, listening eagerly to his voice.

 

“A thousand years and I never stopped dreaming about you.” He smiles and it’s smaller and infinitely more tender than those wide grins he used to bestow her with in his last body. “I lost my memory for a while – couldn’t remember a damn thing. Not even how to fly the TARDIS. But I never forgot this. Never forgot you.”

 

River lifts her hand to his cheek, biting her lip.

 

The Doctor turns his face into her palm, nuzzling into it. “All I had to do was close my eyes and you’d be there – my wee bespoke psychopath. I couldn’t remember who you were to me or where you’d gone but it ached every time I thought of you and I knew.”

 

A lump in her throat, River asks, “What?”

 

“You were precious to me.” The Doctor clutches her to him, stroking her hair from her flushed cheek. “And now look at you. River Song, the woman who can make whole armies turn and run away, letting a man like me have such power over you.” His hand cups her jaw, guiding her to look at him. His blue eyes are narrowed, intent on her face, and there is a note of humbled awe in his voice when he speaks again. “I’ll not abuse it, I promise you.”

 

She nods, touched.

 

Satisfied, the Doctor pins her hands to the mattress again and mutters, “Twenty four years, River.” Her stomach somersaults at the reminder and the Doctor ducks his head to press his lips to her throat, hiding a smile. “We’re going to be so sodding happy.”

 

River hums, eyeing him tenderly. “Already happy, my love.”

 

“Me too,” he murmurs, smug. “Difficult not to be, knowing not even your pretty Ramone got to see you like this.”

 

She lifts her head, startled.

 

The Doctor smirks. “You think I didn’t know?” He draws her leg up over his hip and thrusts so deeply she cries out, throwing her head back as her whole body tightens around him. “This is _ours_. Rather love you for that, you know.” She tries to hide it but there’s no denying the way her eyes light up at the words and the Doctor sees it instantly. “Love a lot of things about you. Like your smile when you’re being clever.”

 

She quirks an eyebrow. “All the time then?”

 

“S’what I said,” he rumbles, grinning as he drops a kiss to the corner of her mouth. He pulls away when River tries to turn her head and snog him properly. He nudges her curls with his nose and mutters, “I love the monstrosity that is your hair in the mornings. How unbearable you are when you’re hungover-”

 

River digs her nails into his arms and when he chuckles, she wonders how he manages to look at her with such soft eyes and fuck her with such vigor at the same time. A talented man, her Doctor.

 

“Your bravery,” he says, sobering as he meets her gaze. “The life you fought so hard to build for yourself. How much you try to do good with what little the universe has given you.”

 

She blinks back tears, wondering if he realizes the universe has always given her just what she needs. He’s here, isn’t he?

 

The Doctor traces his finger down the bridge of her nose, his eyes solemn. “That you can love someone like me. Forgive someone like me.”

 

River smiles and captures his wrist, pressing a kiss to his fingertip. “Always and completely.”

 

“Quite right.” His whole face softens when he smiles like that. He presses his forehead to hers, his hands in her hair and his abdomen grinding against her clit every time he moves. Breath hot against her cheek, he whispers, “What a good girl you are, River Song.”

 

When she comes, her cry rings out like the song of the Towers – euphoric and obeisant, a melody filled with gratitude and reverence broadcasted to the universe. She doesn’t realize she’s crying until the Doctor wipes away a tear with his thumb and studies her in concern. “I know I’m a wee bit rusty but -”

 

She chokes on a laugh, shaking her head. “Happy tears, my love. I promise.”

 

“Oh.” He blinks, his blue eyes warming. “Good.”

 

Their hotel room is far too warm and their bodies stick together in places where the sweat on their skin has dried but River closes her eyes and listens to the thundering of her contented hearts. She feels lighter than air, her whole body floating in sweetness. She is a slate wiped clean. A sinner just after confession. She is loved. Always has been.

 

The Doctor strokes his calloused fingertips along her spine and just before she drifts off, she hears him whisper again in wonder, “Twenty-four years.”

 

River smiles and dreams of forgiveness.


End file.
